A recent report from the World Economic Forum predicted that Bitcoin's underlying technology, blockchain, will soon occupy a central place in the global financial system, with 80% of banks predicted to start blockchain projects by 2017, and $1.4 billion invested in the technology in the past three years.
"Rather than to stay at the margins of the finance industry blockchain will become the beating heart of it," Giancarlo Bruno, head of financial services industries at the World Economic Forum said in a statement. "It will help build innovative solutions across the industry, becoming ever more integrated into the structure of financial services, as mainframes, messaging services, and electronic trading did before it."
For those not familiar, blockchains—also called distributed ledgers—are databases where all digital currency transactions are recorded and stored. They are updated and maintained by a network of users, rather than a single company or government. This technology could offer a way to move money and track transactions across borders in a more secure and efficient way, experts said.
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/bitcoin-blockchain-attorneys-at-law-one-firms-big-switch/